Names and naming dynamics in Damon Galgut’s « The Promise » (2021): a mirror of South African history?

Introduction

Damon Galgut, a South African novelist and playwright, was born in 1963 during the Apartheid regime which lasted until 1994, and thus lived half of his adult life in this unequal and racist State system. In 2003, he was short-listed for the Booker Prize for The Good Doctor, a novel about a rural hospital in post-Apartheid South Africa, for which he won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book: Africa in 2004. He started to gain fame outside of South Africa and continued to be short-listed for various prizes internationally (the Booker Prize in 2010 for In a Strange Room and the Walter Scott Prize in 2015 for Arctic Summer, an account of E. M. Forster’s years in India). In 2021, he became the third South African writer to win the Booker Prize for his novel entitled The Promise. According to Galgut, this book is about time, and was partly inspired by several stories he heard, in particular one told by a friend about the funerals of his parents and siblings, and another about a piece of land a woman wanted to give away. Galgut felt that this was South Africa’s story and that he was going to tell it (Platt).

The Swart family, composed of Rachel and Manie and their children Anton, Astrid and Amor, is at the heart of The Promise: although the passing of time and the successive deaths of the family members are the focus of the novel, the Apartheid system is also omnipresent, as often in Galgut’s works. The Promise is indeed rife with references to the Apartheid regime and its impact on ordinary people’s lives. The ‘promise’ itself refers to a vow expressed by a dying white woman, Rachel, who instructs Manie, her husband, to give their black servant Salome ownership of the house she inhabits on their land. This apparently simple wish is however not granted by several members of the family and complicated over time by the intricate laws over land ownership in South Africa and the changes in racial policies once the Apartheid system is abolished.

The novel is structured in four parts which take place at four different periods: each part narrates the events unfolding around the time of death and burial of one of the family members. This structure allows Galgut to hint at the political and social state of South Africa over the span of some forty years. Indeed, the novel starts in 1986, when the mother, Rachel, succumbs to an illness, and ends in 2018, when Anton, the elder sibling, commits suicide in a field of the family farm. Only the youngest child, Amor, is still alive at the end of the book and is finally able to fulfil the promise her father made to her dying mother but never undertook himself, by making Salome the owner of her house on their farm.

The book tackles many different topics, such as alcoholism and domestic violence, depression, but also murder and trauma, which are a testimony of the Swarts’ chronically dysfunctional family model. Most relationships between members of this family only bring disappointment, anger or sorrow, their personalities being so different that they prevent any form of proper communication or understanding. Anton violently clashes with his father, Manie, and both reject everything that is associated with the other, while Amor simply cannot communicate with anyone in her family and leaves as soon as possible, scarcely giving them any news or even sending a sign that she is still alive.

This lack of communication explains why names can be seen as such an important feature of the novel. The act of naming someone or calling them by their name is meaningful and may give clues as to the dynamics there can exist between characters. Onomastics also provides readers with hints as to what the characters might stand for, or be symbols of, but it would be simplistic to reduce names to transparent labels which could account for someone’s complexity, and this tension is among the subjects this paper will explore. Naming, as an act, also relates to power dynamics, and it shall be seen that it mirrors the country’s history to a surprising extent.

1. The meaning of names

The Promise was favourably received by many critics, and Claire Messud remarked in her review for Harper’s Magazine that it was “uniquely itself, and greater than the sum of its parts”. Following her statement, it can be argued that the novel is more than just the narration of four burials at four different times. It is a story about the passing of time, and especially about the evolution of human relationships and dynamics over time. One of its most striking aspects is the demonstration of how small cracks in a relationship grow bigger over time, and eventually become insurmountable ditches which irremediably alienate people.

Some of the dynamics of the novel can be unveiled by paying close attention to onomastics. Indeed, many names are loaded with meaning in The Promise, be it because of the origins they point to, or because they provide clues as to some characteristics of the person they name. Rachel, Salome and Manie’s names thus reveal their ancestors’ origins as Manie is short for Herman, a German name, associated with the colonial past of South Africa, while Rachel and Salome are both Hebrew names, which is significant as the two characters are very close. Onomastics also signals that, symbolically, the notions of black and white are inverted in the novel. Indeed, “Salome” is Hebrew for peace, while “Swart” means ‘of a dark hue’ in Afrikaans, as well as gloomy and malignant.

Onomastics may thus provide the reader with hypotheses about the characters from the first time their names are revealed. For example, the last name of Jake Moody, Astrid’s husband, seems to foreshadow his emotional instability. The names of the detectives who are investigating Moody’s death also fit their job or appearance: one is called Hunter, and the other Olyphant. The latter’s “waist size” is mentioned (178), and the paronomasia with ‘elephant’ seems to mock his appearance but could also be a reference to ivory, which could symbolically signal him as one of the few genuine characters of the novel (since one of the symbols usually associated with the whiteness of ivory is purity). Many clues in the book show the extent to which these names are befitting the characters who bear them: Manie Swart is quite gloomy and his son Anton seems to be constantly brooding over something, although it is unclear whether he himself knows what causes his moods. On the other hand, the black maid Salome is one of the only people who seem balanced in the book. She is a landmark for the Swart children (especially Anton and Amor), staying in the same place all her life, creating a continuity and providing them with emotional security, in the absence of loving parents. As the family slowly sinks into oblivion, Salome remains on the farm, loyal and faithful until only Amor is left, even though she was never treated fairly from the moment Rachel died.

Onomastics can also point to distinctions between characters. For instance, the names of two characters, Desirée (Anton’s wife) and Amor, both refer to different ideas of love. The name Desirée has a French origin and may suggest that the character is an object of desire, which could foreshadow her mostly physical and not spiritual relationship with Anton. Amor, on the other hand, means love in Spanish. This name seems to fit her more and more as one progresses through the novel: as she becomes a nurse, she is the only figure capable of selfless love, described as very soft and caring with her patients, and unable to fit in a family where relationships are built on violence or miscommunication. However this name also raises questions: pictured as the odd one out in the family, does she receive as much love as she gives, from her family, and even from Susan, her lover? Those questions are left unanswered because of Galgut’s narrating style that is close to the characters but also ironically distant, and there emerges what literary critic James Wood calls “a different form of knowing”.

2. The power of names

Names are more than mere labels, and The Promise illustrates their intrinsic power. Names can indeed be tools that help unlock the depths of a character and expose the dynamics of power. Galgut’s narration, which is always shifting from first to third person, evolves in “an indistinct space”, and drifts “from tight focus on a single character to a more piercing, detached view”, as Jon Day writes in The Guardian, which allows him to draw the full potentialities of the use of names.

As a name marks someone’s identity, its change is the sign of a strong desire to dissociate oneself from one’s history and start a new chapter. For instance, one character mockingly refers to a local boy “called Mario or Marco” who decided to change his name to “Moti or Muti” after returning from a spiritual journey in India. This character’s first name was given by his parents, but the fact that he chooses another name shows his empowerment and desire to fully grasp and control his life. Astrid’s aspiration to do the same could be linked to her lack of happiness with her daily life and signal her increasing desire of self-belonging. She thinks changing her birth name could help her break free from the Swart family and its complicated dynamics, and her new name would become a marker of transformation, stemming from a deep exploration of herself and not just a superficial desire to have a prettier or more original name.

Additionally, the power of names arises from the act of naming itself, which can be interpreted as a mark of respect or, on the contrary, a rude act. There are several instances in the book when someone deliberately miscalls another character, as when Luka, Amor’s former childhood friend, calls her “white lady”. Luka knows that this form of address is going to hurt Amor, and he does so intentionally. His doing it on purpose shows that names can be weapons, words used to cause harm or assert dominance. The omission or distortion of names thus serves within this narrative as a reflection of their capacity to manipulate social dynamics, and to play a role in broader power and class struggles. In South African society, which is deeply concerned with identity, names become instruments that conceal or reveal the characters’ power, adding layers of complexity to their relationships. In the extract below, the conversation between Anton and a soldier outside an army camp points to the power of names. 

Commented excerpt

This passage stages a simple interaction between Anton and a soldier, and Anton’s inner fracture is here evidenced by his inability to communicate. Even a mundane conversation like this one, which would usually be superficial and cordial, creates uneasiness for the person Anton is talking to. Indeed, Anton seems unable to use language in its phatic function: his answer to a very factual statement (“You’re not supposed to be here”) is dramatic and out of place as he seems to be sharing an intimate loss with a stranger he has only just met (“I have lost my mother”). However, his outpouring of emotion could be understandable as Anton might have been seeking comfort and expecting kind words from the other man because, on the one hand, he shot and killed a civilian woman the day before (simply because she threw a stone), and on the other hand, his own mother died recently. However, Anton immediately makes his interlocutor uneasy by declaring that he shot his mother (whom he is confusing with the woman he shot the day before), which throws off the soldier and makes him wonder whether Anton is telling the truth. This instinctive suspicion is suggested by the fact that the soldier repeatedly questions Anton’s statements: “Lost her?” “You shot your mother?”

Anton answers those questions by asking the man’s name, which is met with distrust and worry. Payne reluctantly agrees to share his last name, whose meaning is highly symbolical – could this repeated encounter with Payne symbolize the pain Anton keeps experiencing throughout his life, and his inability to properly get over it? This hypothesis is made even more striking by Anton’s last sentence of the excerpt: “I surrender, Private Payne” – a phrase that rings like his definitive desertion from his fight against depression and his other inner demons (“I surrender, private pain”).

However, there is more to note about Anton’s complicated relationship with names and titles. Indeed, he also wants to know Payne’s first name, apparently not realizing that the other resents this demand as an inappropriate intrusion into his intimacy. Because of the strong symbolical meaning of Payne’s name, Anton asks him his first name to check that the man is not a fruit of his imagination (“Are you an allegory? Are you real?”), as he seems to realize that a name is not a mere label, an inoffensive word. Payne’s refusal to reveal his first name points to the fact that if one’s last name is de facto public, one’s first name is more intimate, private, and is thus to be shared only with trustworthy people, a group in which he obviously does not include Anton.

This extract therefore shows some of the power encapsulated in a name, which can become a symbol, but also a shield from the outside world and from some of its dangers.

3. Naming dynamics as a mirror of South African history

Throughout the novel, it seems that brother and sister Anton and Amor are two sides of the same coin, in that they both stand for the figure of otherness in their own family. They can be considered as outsiders among their own kin and may bring forward the figure of the underdog, the oppressed, whose voice is never summoned out of genuine and pacific interest.

However, this parallel between brother and sister ceases to be true after Anton enters mature adulthood: he finds himself unable to get over the trauma of having killed a civilian in his youth, which brings out a destructive side of his character, and he gradually falls into alcoholism and depression, while maintaining toxic love relationships. On the other hand, Amor, who also severed all the links between her and her family, is always described as an excellent nurse, genuine, caring and professional, always tending to the poorest and sickest, to the point of damaging her own health. Her life seems to have found a certain balance, although fragile, with a happier love life than her brother’s.

Anton’s status as an outsider is partly related to the fact that Dominee Alwyn, the local priest, never remembers his name, and, as Alwyn is a recurring figure at the parents’ funerals, it constitutes a motive which follows Anton for a good part of the novel. The clergyman’s inability to remember Anton’s name highlights his lack of concern for the family’s eldest child: he never went past the appearances of someone he decided mattered very little. This attitude, from a man supposed to embody peace, serenity, and an equal attention and benevolence towards everybody, is particularly striking. It also raises the topical question of the origins of Anton’s angst later on in his life: to what extent did the priest’s attitude contribute to turning an unhappy teenager into someone who became a danger to himself and to others?

Anton and Dominee Alwyn represent antagonistic sides and it is clear early on in the novel that they will never find any common ground. Anton sometimes retaliates, calling the dominee by other names, seemingly trying to find a way to show the contempt he feels for the clergyman, but even this shared and reciprocal hatred fails to help them communicate with each other.

The novel comprises other nameless characters, whether because their name is never used (as when family members are referred to through pronouns only), or because they are called by a name which is not theirs, like Bob, the homeless man who sleeps outside Dominee Alwyn’s church. This is particularly powerful because a character’s name is not just an ordinary word, but is often profoundly revelatory of a person’s significance. Consequently, not using someone’s name, or making one up just for the sake of easiness of understanding, regardless of the person’s identity, is a deliberate act of indifference, a declaration that the person’s existence is inconsequential. A character’s name acts like a window onto their inner world, giving the reader a glimpse at the intricacies of their identity. Denying a character their name therefore becomes a powerful authorial act, and condemns the said character to express themselves through the energy of silence, for lack of a proper voice.

This is reminiscent of the history of Galgut’s country: parts of South Africa became a Dutch colony as early as 1691, but even after South Africa turned into a Union, and then a Republic, the country was ruled by violence and marked by inequality between different ethnic groups. During the whole Apartheid era, the former colonisers, the white Afrikaners, held all the power and enjoyed high economic and social statuses, while the indigenous black people were denied any civil right and most freedoms. The example of the black maid Salome shows the extent to which they were dispossessed of their land and very country: until the early 2000s, Salome is not even allowed to own a house, on a piece of land that previously belonged to her ancestors.

South African history is rife with what Lauret E. Savoy, in her 2023 essay entitled “Ancestral Structures on the Trailing Edge”, calls “gaps”, caused by servitude, ignorance, distorted public narratives and loss of language. These gaps, which correspond to the parts of indigenous history which colonisation and the Boer wars have erased, are mirrored in The Promise by the focus on certain characters and the dynamics contained in the act of naming or not naming a character.

Manie, Astrid, and the rest of the extended family never use Salome’s name, which they do not even remember, like Dominee Alwyn with Anton. The fact that Astrid often forgets about Salome and that Desiree always sees her as some part of a blurry background speaks volumes about the lack of consideration black South Africans have suffered for centuries. The only black character who is a part of the Swarts’ daily environment is present for decades, but is never mentioned or noticed, except by Rachel, Anton or Amor, the very characters who leave the house first. This unbalanced representation may be said to mirror the invisibility of a majority of South African people over the course of modern history.

Indeed, the scheme opposing oppressors and oppressed is symbolically reproduced within the Swart family. Salome, whose name has a Jewish origin and who belongs to a community who has been persecuted for centuries, is dispossessed by Manie of what the promise would have given her, the owndership of her house. Incidentally, the person who is kindest to Salome is Rachel, who also bears a name of Jewish origin. On the other hand, Manie’s name, Herman, places him in the position of the colonizers, the oppressors of the Jewish people during the Shoah, who symbolically relegate Rachel to the side of the oppressed, like Salome, which brings the two women closer, especially as Rachel was perhaps brutalized by her husband. Manie’s name is thus associated with a violent past, a position of brutal domination, which he seems to reproduce inside his own family.

At some point, he expresses regret about having chosen names that all began by the letter ‘A’ for his children. This creates a clanic continuity, as if the family was perpetuating the traditions of a dynasty, in a country historically fractured between different ethnic groups. Manie’s regret could highlight the weight of expectations, which Amor and Anton soon found too heavy, as they fled the family in their own ways, contrary to Astrid, the only sibling who set up a conventional family, raising two children. The family seems to mirror the situation of the whole country: the moral failings of the Swarts reflect those of a divided post-apartheid South Africa. According to Jon Day, “as members of the family find reasons to deny or defer Salome’s inheritance, the moral promise – the potential, or expectation – of the next generation of South Africans, and of the nation itself, is shown to be just as compromised as that of their parents”.

However, the novel contains some hopeful notes, which tend to give one the impression that a peaceful reunification might be possible, and that is especially noticeable in the second part, when the 1995 Rugby World Cup is alluded to. Some famous names of the national rugby team are evoked, like Joel Stransky or François Pienaar, as well as Nelson Mandela, who had become president of the country the year before. These names are significant, because they were more than identifiers: they were symbols of unity and strength. After centuries of wars and ethnic conflicts, rugby acted as a common ground for the different communities, transcending their fractures and uniting them together. As a result, the names of Pienaar or Stransky overcome the confines of the narrative, and embody the hope and resilience of a young nation.

Conclusion

The Promise is a powerful book in which names play a major role. They are at the centre of power dynamics and family relationships, reflecting aspects of South African history on a larger scale. Most of the characters’ names have loaded onomastics, which highlights the fact that names are much more than passive labels. They actively participate to the storytelling, revealing the characters’ inner struggles or wounds; they are windows onto their souls and personal stories. Names in The Promise sometimes deflect the classic black and white narratives, unveiling the extent of the complexity upon which South Africa was built. This novel shows that naming is a power, and silently encourages its readers to abandon a single and partial narrative, to embrace the diversity of colonial and post-colonial history.

Bibliography

ALLFREE, Claire. “Damon Galgut’s End of the Rainbow”, Metro (blog), 6 December 2019, https://metro.co.uk/2008/06/18/damon-galguts-end-of-the-rainbow-199253/

DAY, Jon. “The Promise by Damon Galgut. Review – Legacies of Apartheid”, The Guardian, 18 June 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jun/18/the-promise-by-damon-galgut-review-legacies-of-apartheid

GALGUT, Damon. 2021. The Promise. London: Vintage Publishing.

KRISHNAN, Nikhil. “Booker Prize Winner 2021: The Promise by Damon Galgut. Review – a Peculiar Apartheid Allegory”, The Daily Telegraph, 14 September 2021, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/booker-prize-shortlist-2021-promise-damon-galgut-review-peculiar/

MESSUD, Claire. “New Books”, Harper’s Magazine (blog), April 2021, https://harpers.org/archive/2021/04/new-books-april-2021/

PLATT, Jennifer. “Damon Galgut on the genesis of ‘The Promise’”, The Sunday Times (South Africa), 22 September 2022, https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/books/fiction/2022-09-25-damon-galgut-on-the-genesis-of-the-promise0/

WOOD, James. “A Family at Odds Reveals a Nation in the Throes”, The New Yorker, 12 April 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/19/a-family-at-odds-reveals-a-nation-in-the-throes

Further reading

CAROLIN, Andy. 2023. "Apartheid's Patriarchies in Decline: White Masculinities in Damon Galgut's The Promise", Journal of Literary Studies, volume 39, n°1, https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/13609 

PAWLICKI, Marek. 2024. "Reading Resistance in Damon Galgut's The Promise: An Analysis of Narrative Perspective", English studies in Africa, volume 67, n°1, pp.82-96.

WALKER, Laura Savu. 2024. "Setting a "Disordered Universe" to Rights: The Ethics and Politics of Dispossession in Damon Galgut's The Promise", Contemporary Literature, volume 64, n°3, pp.352-372.

2023. "Roundtable on Damon Galgut's The Promise", English Studies in Africa, volume 66, n°2, https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/reia20/66/2?nav=tocList (7 articles on The Promise).

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Benoîte Gottiniaux, Names and naming dynamics in Damon Galgut’s The Promise (2021): a mirror of South African history?, La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), janvier 2025. Consulté le 15/01/2025. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/litterature/litterature-postcoloniale/names-and-naming-dynamics-in-damon-galgut-s-the-promise-2021